RFK in EKY, The Robert F. Kennedy Performance Project, is a series of public conversations and activities centered around the real-time, site-specific intermedia performance that recreated, on September 9th and 10th 2004, Robert Kennedy’s two-day, 200 mile “poverty tour” of southeastern Kentucky in 1968.
An Appalshop project directed by John Malpede.

State
of Incarceration Performance - Los Angeles Poverty Department’s Examination of the Personal
and Social Costs of Incarceration in the U.S.

June 15-18, 2011

“Scared Straight! has nothing on this often compelling piece
of political theater.” —LA Weekly

In a performance space filled wall-to-wall with prison bunk
beds, performers and audience share overcrowded conditions akin to a California
state prison for the latest work from Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD).
One-third of the state’s parolees settle in the 55 square blocks of Los Angeles
known as Skid Row, and State of Incarceration—developed collaboratively by
LAPD’s Skid Row artists and in dialogue with organizers and recent
parolees—powerfully examines the consequences of California's penal system on
individuals, families and communities.Outlining a ritual of incarceration from
entry to release and re-integration, State of Incarceration constructs a
complex challenge to the societal perceptions and fear-based policies of a
nation with the highest rate of incarceration in the world.

Directed by John Malpede and Henriëtte Brouwers - Run Time: 90 minutes

The performance State
of Incarceration explores the
consequence of incarceration on people, families and communities. The US has
the highest rate of incarceration in the world, California has the greatest
number of prisoners in the US and 33% of parolees released to the Los Angeles
area settle in the 52 square block neighborhood of Skid Row.

LAPD, a theater company of people living and working in
Skid Row Los Angeles, is in a strategic place for undertaking this
exploration. Many of the creator /
performers in State of Incarceration have
been incarcerated. LAPD performances link lived experience to the
historical and social forces that shape that experience.

About LAPD’s: “History of Incarceration” Project:LAPD’s
History of Incarceration project combines
theater, installation and public education to examine the personal and
social
costs of incarceration in the US.The performance and installation’s creative material is developed
in
workshops and brings together the first hand personal experience of
performers
including their inside understanding of how the prison system functions.In State of Incarceration these artists
articulate the mental and physical challenges of incarceration and the
resources needed to endure and recover from it.

This project has many
goals. One is that it will enable
the public to visually and viscerally understand the conditions created by
public policies that have led California to have the largest prison population
in the US. The second is to create
an opportunity for former prisoners to share their lived expertise, about the
prison experience, the state of incarceration and how to survive it. And the ultimate goal of the project is
to create a moment of exchange and reflection on how they and we, the people of
California, as a state can recover from living in a state of incarceration. State of Incarceration
performances began in June 2010.Additional performances took place at various community
locations
throughout the fall and at the BOX gallery in Chinatown, in Jan. & Feb. 2011 at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica and in June at the RADAR LA Festival.

State of Incarceration is directed by John Malpede and Henriëtte Brouwers and written / improvised by the LAPD performers. The trajectory of the
piece extends from entering prison through incarceration, to release and the
challenges of re-integration after prison. The piece is not character based, but is a litany of
experiences suffered under similar conditions, contributed by and recognizable
to all the performers. In that
sense State of Incarceration
performs the ritual of
incarceration. The performance is a communal quest to understand, communicate
and recover from the experience of incarceration: by making peace with yourself
and others who have made you suffer. There’s personal responsibility and
there’s societal responsibility. Getting your life back means accepting
personal responsibility and understanding societal responsibility. The two come
together in recovery from incarceration, by understanding that it’s part of
your individual responsibility, as a recovering convict, to work together
collectively to change the societal stigma and current judicial approaches to
rehabilitation.

“History of Incarceration”
is a project of Creative Capital, which currently receives funding from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, The TOBY Fund, The James Irvine Foundation, The Nathan Cummings Foundation, and more than 150 other individuals and institutional donors. The project was developed with support from National Endowment for the Arts-Theater and the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs and The Creation Fund of the National Performance Network. “State of Incarceration” is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation Fund Project co-commissioned by Highways Performance Space in partnership with Tucson-Pima Arts Council], VSA Arts of New Mexico, The Queens Museum and NPN. The Creation Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). For more information: www.npnweb.org. LAPD would like to thank The Box Gallery and United Coalition East Prevention Project for the space to create and The Bold and The Beautiful for their donation of 30 bunk beds.

LAPD’s State of Incarceration was the
centerpiece of the retrospective exhibition. State of Incarceration’s 60
prison bunk-beds are installed in 1200 feet of gallery space along with
video excerpts for the 4 month duration of the exhibition. --- LAPD’s
large State of Incarceration cast came to NYC for a week of performances
and residency
activities, which included public conversations and workshops on
reforming
the criminal justice system.

In Highways’ Gallery: LAPD created an
exhibition in the gallery that included images charting the expansion of
the prison population and prison construction in California over the past 3
decades. The exhibition also included
elements from the prison poster collection of The Center for the Study of
Political Graphics. In the gallery visitors were asked to read one page from the 9th
Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, that the health services and over-crowded
conditions in California’s State prisons are in violation of the US constitution and constitute “Cruel and
unusual punishment”. These readings were videoed. Pages read by Californians at previous
project locations were projected as part of the exhibition.

LAPD created a 8 hour film of the 184 Californians reading the
entire 184 page decision of 9th.Circuit Court.

November
6-20, 2010 - a gallery installation, and performances @
The Box Gallery in Chinatown

This
installation will fill the main floor of The Box wall-to-wall with 30 bunk
beds, same as in over crowded California State Prisons--- where gymnasiums and
cafeterias have been turned into dormitories housing 3 and 4 hundred prisoners.
The exhibition will include 5 performance events –each one different--- all
will take place within the prison bunk-bed installation. Each performance is an
experiment in which the performers, the audience, and the performance material
are inserted into this restrictive prison architecture.

OPENING
RECEPTION Nov.
6, Saturday, 6-9 pm

The opening
will include performance material developed in LAPD workshops. The performance
will take place in the installation. LAPD’s State of Incarceration project
combines theater, installation and public education to examine the personal and
social costs of incarceration in the US.

PERFORMANCE Nov.
12, Friday,8 pm

In State of
Incarceration LAPD artists articulate the mental and physical challenges of
incarceration and the resources needed to endure and recover from it.

PERFORMANCE Nov.
13, Saturday, 8 pm

California has the greatest number of prisoners in the U.S.The 9th Circuit Court of
Appeal has ordered the State to reduce the prison population to 137% of
capacity.

PERFORMANCE Nov.
19, Friday,8 pm

When released from state penitentiaries with $200 gate money,
parolees are directed to Skid Row with the largest concentration of low cost
housing in LA County.

PERFORMANCE Nov.
20, Saturday, 8 pm

33% of parolees released to the Los Angeles area settle in the
52 square block neighborhood of Skid Row.

The
main floor gallery will be installed wall to wall with prison bunk beds.Video elements will be installed on the
beds.The basement gallery
will include images charting the expansion of the prison population and new
prison construction in California over the past 3 decades and the 21 year and
counting history of the lawsuit challenging the quality of the health services
available to inmates in the state’s over-crowded prisons.In 2010 the 9th Circuit Court of
Appeals ruled that these conditions amounted to “cruel and unusual
punishment.”Governor Schwarzenegger
has appealed this ruling.

2010: Community
performances STATE OF INCARCERATION:

*
Aug. 12: Behavioral Systems SW Inc.,van
Nuys

*
Aug. 14: Jonahproject, Skid Row

* Aug. 21: AMITY Foundation Re-entry Program, Los Angeles

* Dec. 17: Chuco's Justice High School, Inglewood

FREE
WORK-IN-PROGRESS-PERFORMANCES 'STATE OF INCARCERATION'

* June 9: Central City Community Church, corner 6th and San Pedro Street

* June 10: LA CAN, 530 South Main Street.

The June performances were
structured around the making and serving of a communal meal—prison style.Prisoners come together and combine the
foodstuffs they each have in their cells to make “THE SPREAD”.Using Ramen noodles as the base
ingredient, the cooking is done by putting noodles, hot water and everything
else in a large clear trash bag and kneading it for 20 minutes until done.

Here’s the recipe: MAKING THE
SPREAD

-18
packages of soup Ramen noodles: beef-chicken-oriental-shrimp,

-2
bags of Cheetos chips-cheese 1 bag original flavor and 1 hot,

-1
bag tortilla chips, guacamole flavor,

-2
packs crackers-original flavor,

-1
pack of big flour tortillas,

-1
jar light mayo,

-1
jar sliced jalapeños- hot,

-1 jar
sliced pickles,

-12
OZ. turkey bologna ,

-1
pack of small beef sausages,

-4
packs of light tuna in water ,

-plenty
of garlic,

-hot
water.

"I was thrown into the county jail for six months for
not completing my year-long domestic violence classes. I was transferred to Wayside
County jail to do my time. My money hadn’t caught up with me yet. But the guys
I was hanging out with invited me to the spread. It made me feel like a part of
a family. It took about a month before I get any money but I was invited to the
spread every time they had one, which was about four times a week. The feeling
of being accepted was overwhelming."

A performance that looks at
the reality that California has the most people in prison anywhere.LAPD
members show the mental and physical condition of this State of Incarceration
and the resources needed to endure and recover from it. ‘History of
Incarceration Song’ and ‘Making the Spread’ text by Riccarlo Porter with Debra
Anderson, Celestine Williams, Vinson Fuller, Charles Jackson, Austin Hines,
Bill Grant, Jimmy Johnson, Daniel Meza, Ibrahim Saba, Henriëtte Brouwers,
Jennifer Campbell, Richard Butts, Sista Mary, Michael Coleman, Jesse
Buenrostro, Wylie and ‘CO - Prisoner’ texts by John Malpede, ‘The
Slave Boat’ by KevinMicahel Key, ‘Jumping Jacks’ by Anthony Taylor, ‘Buck
Rogers Time‘ by Ronnie Walker, ‘Predatory Prisoner’ by Diop Ababacar, ‘My First
Job’ by Elona Williams and more!

This food
is for the ones who were denied food

For one day in Chile

For one week in Haiti

For one month in Louisiana

In the prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan,
Guantanamo

The Federal Prison

The private prisons

For all of
them, everybody eats today.

Feed them.

Feed them.

You can
stop whenever you want to, but the hunger never ends.

You can
stop whenever you want to, but it never ends.

The line
never ends.

The hunger
never ends.

Reach out
to all the hungry in the universe.

May 20, 2010: PANEL & DISCUSSION: Parole Reform
Shakeout: Who Wins and Who Loses? The Effects of California's Parole
Reform on Parolees, People Getting Out and Transitional Programs
Downtown@ the Central City Community Church on the corner San Pedro & 6th
Street.

The Los
Angeles Poverty Department has organized a panel to discuss the effects of the
state’s parole reform on people living downtown: current parolees, transitional
programs and people who will be released under the provisions of the parole
reform. Already the effects are being seen as some current
programs lose funding and people in defunded programs scramble for housing and
support services. Professionals working with parolees will share
their insights into the effects of the reform on the people who will be most
effected by it: current and near future parolees and people who will be
released with non-revocable parole. Currently, one-third of the city’s
parolees arein downtown.

Marilyn
Montenegro, social
worker and coordinator of the Women's Council Prison Project, a project that
provides social work services for women in prison and women leaving prison.

The panel
will be moderated by:

Ruthie
Gilmore, professor
of American Studies at USC and author of “The Golden Gulag”.

According to law enforcement officials and others, the reforms have
created public safety concerns that need to be addressed. But, we
would like to return the focus to the needs of the people who are coming out of
the criminal justice system.